Stereoscopic displays are seeing a revival following the success of 3D cinematic productions. Technology has played its part in making what used to be an uncomfortable experience into enjoyable and desirable entertainment.
Cinematic display technology is primarily polarization encoded projection of time-sequential left and right eye images. Alternate images are flashed onto a screen through a liquid crystal modulating element that imparts near orthogonal circularly polarized states onto the projected light. Reflection from a ‘silver’ screen preserves polarization so that viewers that don appropriate analyzing eyewear see only those images destined for correct eyes. The difference between left and right eye images produces stereoscopic disparity which is naturally interpreted by a user as depth.
An extension of this technology is to apply it to TVs in the home enabling 3D in the living room. Unfortunately, the response time used by time sequential 3D is at odds with the dominant display technology, particularly in liquid crystal display (LCD) based displays. Extending the cinema approach to high-quality stereoscopic TV is therefore difficult because it means being able to display alternate images at high frame rate without noticeable frame to frame mixing and motion blur.